


Distant dread through observation panes

by Vuetyris (Nilysil)



Series: Operative Warren [8]
Category: Warframe
Genre: Anxiety Attacks, Body Horror, Canon relevance, Dysphoria, Father Figures, Gen, Mawframe, Mental Instability, Non-canon biology, Post-Quest, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Trauma, Trauma Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-26
Updated: 2018-06-26
Packaged: 2019-05-28 21:29:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15058184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nilysil/pseuds/Vuetyris
Summary: Contains spoilers for The SacrificeNrtya stares into the enveloping black, emotionally numb as his mind swims as he tries to settle his taut nerves. Despite his attempts, a voice grinds at his restraints, body trembling as stones tap on wood.





	Distant dread through observation panes

**Author's Note:**

> -+- Kudos, comments and sharing are encouraged! -+-

The hum of the orbiter’s void mask lets his mind drift unobstructed; focus honed to the paced breath escaping reformed lungs, the shifting of a dark scarf laid between crossed legs as it lifts and eases down against his sword-steel skin as his palms lie barren. He thinks of nothing, only of the inhale and exhale, his glazed vision drifting down from closure to the skiajati laid out on the blanket in front of him, a glance of reassurance that it’s still there. The singular eye drifts closed again amongst the mass of exposed flesh, where veins echo tainted blue energy around his sullen eye.

In front of him, in the thick glass separating him from the empty voids of space, lingers his reflection.

An encrustment of faded gold stands firmly in the center of his helm – his head – and trails down along the sides of the prominent jut that provokes the silhouette of an excalibur warframe. The gilding is twisted by the exposing damage on the left side, leaving his vision exposed, the innards of his firm features laid bare and pink with maddened flesh. Aside from his gilding, a rarity, it was a distinction of who he is.

Not of who he was.

Breathing sighs as he adjusts himself, feeling along his biceps his escaping breath from unseen vents tucked against his sides, along ribs refashioned for his broader chest, an increased capacity. This body, so comforting yet so foreign. That he was not his yet, it was. It was regrettably his own despite being reformed by the tenno in the other room.

Even I make mistakes, like you.

His constituted, formless brow squeezes; pressuring the memory from his thoughts as he focuses outward beyond himself. Fingers drawn over the scarf lingering around his neck, rubbing the fabric between forefinger and thumb as he focuses on the physical world around him. The mild hum of the void mask engines as prevents its presence to the passing corpus ships – shapes dulled and their lights outlining their rounded features. He watches it beyond the glass, drawing breath within himself as its where his focus shapes. To his predicament, his situation.

Stay on the ship, stay out of trouble. That’s all his directives he was given before the teen’s parental figure headed out for a long mission. It’d take a tentative week or so, the warframe had estimated before leaving the ship; leaving him alone with the kid and a different warframe with back-bent horns. An ‘oberon’ or whichever they were referred to as being – too different from him, too uncomfortable to fathom as he isolated himself from the others.

All he needs is space, as he closes his eye once more; breath exhaling against his biceps lying limp against his chest. They just need to leave him be, to come to terms with the reality within self-isolation.

Embroidered by thought he refocuses again, distraction tempting as the void mask around the ship begins to dissipate, the empty air refilled with the ambience of the ship’s normal functions in a regulated cloak as it drifts in orbit. Technological clicks merge into the backing of noise, analysis of system functions running routine. Music whispers around him, singing faintly as his head drifts back serene, calming, listening to the mellow sounds taking him adrift in his mental landscape and retain placidity.

If only it would remain thus; the clicking of something foreign taps.

And another.

He rejects the taunting against his nerves, carving his attention back to the meditation and away from the disruption. It’s a distant noise, a brief nuance in the variety surrounding him in humming machinery, the rustle of bobbing bonsais, the texture of his deep umber skin and the fibers of his loose flowing scarf. There’s always something he attunes to and pull him back, drawing himself away from the sound of what seems to be … stone on a hard surface. Smooth. Small. A dainty tap as it makes contact.

His singular brow presses against the flesh crafted into his cranem jut, trying to push out the thoughts, the memories forming, away.

It just won’t stop.

A black stone placed.

Tapping.

A white stone is laid.

Again.

A carnal shake doesn’t displace the feeling oozing through his gut, the dread sinking through his nerves; the visceral and the carnal. Desperate to evoke himself back to silence, staring out into the emptiness and his own glazed sight in his reflection. Skin formed into sword-steel, darken, saturating in the depths of space as gold gilding reflects the backing light of the quarters. A hideous visage reflected, a body his own but also not. Skin made of infested flesh, yet smooth beside his damaged face where his eye squints alone.

A tap, followed by another.

The eye closes, energy surging as he tries to focus himself to the foliage around him. The humming electronics. The texture of his scarf as he pulls it against his side.

Tap.

Anywhere but his memories, he tries to draw himself.

Tap.

His fists ball against his thighs, the scarf around his neck tightens as he loses track of his breathing. Relentlessly he tries to keep his focus contained, away from the figments forming, digging against his anxious nerves as his hand plays with the coils of his dark scarf. It draws the curled fabric tighter against a muted scar, a carryover from his transformation, the congealing of organic matter permanently scarred.

He chokes.

Voice hoarse, barely a cry as his memories flash.

Laid upon a hospital bed, tucked tightly, body bound, unable to move as the Orokin sits with leg over knee. He can’t breathe, struggling in the concealed binds.

Ballas is staring. Luminous eyes glowing.

The faint of a callous smile.

A click.

His hand around his throat presses against the sullen wound, a tinge of pain that draws him back to the present of staring out into the unending black. It’s a false comfort as the anxiety bleeds, his glazed eye reflecting the tinted bleached blue energy swarming beneath his umber skin and destressed gilding. Fingers press around the faint of the wound, a reminder of the one memory that remained prior to being taken in by the teen and their warframes. He was not like them, there was no one like him.

Tap.

Palm pressed against the floor, he hoists himself up, exhaling a breath he had unattentively holding, drawing breath quickly as the skiajati is held tightly against his side. Almost conjoined to his hip, he rises to his full towering height, lording over the surrounding bonsais and flowering plants that decorate the meditation platform. He pressures the memories away even as they fleet at the edge of his attention, drawn against his nerves as the incessant tapping persists beyond the closed door into the small quarters.

Anxiety draws him away from investigating and hesitation makes him still; yet he needs to know, discomfort a primary that forces him to move. Despite the crawling within his nerves, the anxiousness that dampens his mood, his movements display as a façade of calm as he wanders up the curling stairs around the flora display. It’s merely a falsehood of stability, his lack of visible stability his only salvation from trembling as he steps towards the tap of stones.

It beats within his temple like naga drums, a daft percussion as the door eases itself open with a vocal hiss.

His inability to express himself is a double-edged vice; suited more for the dredge of battle than in the company of discomfort. Unable to speak, expression null by contorted flesh aside from a sullen eye glazed by disease and painted stark white. His voice; taken from him; leaving only a berserker howl from mutated lungs and barely the figment of a whisper as he breathes – his wheeze a sound only he is so privy to hearing.

The stone taps that extubate his anxiety meld with his mild wheezing; two sounds that draw him back to trauma.

Lied back on a bed unable to move, voice taken from him, a pain jolting through his body as he’s forced to move figments of black stones. The difficulty of concentrating on playing, to satisfy a mocking emotionless mouth. Golden sight baring down at him; cold and taunting.

Tap.

At the corner his motion slows moreso, half standing on the ramp towards the central hub of operation and leaning in to peek with concealed sight.

It’s the teen, hair tussled from clawed fingers running through front to back before it scratches the head of their resting two-toned kavat. Across from them sits the boy’s oberon, the warframe hunched down and staring intently at the item between them. As he peers further, it’s a goban, decorated with black and white stones.

A wave of relief coaxes through his systems. Ballas hasn’t come back for him.

But the sound of the tapping stones still draws him anxious. Too close to the panic he felt so long ago, a reminder of what he’s lost and of the pain he was put through.

The oberon catches sight, and then the teen does.

“Oh, Nrtya!” the teen calls.

The umbra barely flinches, restoring himself to a nearly proud stance – his first instinct.

“Would you like to play-“ the teen starts.

“- a game of komi?” his anxiety finishes, reliving the surge of pain digging around his throat, held reveled around his wrists making him plank stiff. Nrtya barely raises his hand and fingers brush down in a brief dismissal, forcing himself to breathe, to relax. It’s not the executor; he’s safe; he’s okay – but he knows he’s not actually okay as panic storms through his stoic shape. Nrtya fumbles to remember the teen’s name – Warren, was it? He can’t be sure as his mind continues to swarm with trauma received by Ballas.

Warren goes silent as he watches the umbra’s posture shift. Nrtya’s posture displays an air of discomfort inadvertently as he wavers in place; standing separated by a structure strut from the goban despite Warren sitting between him and the block. Fingers dig against where they lie, the skiajati held angular down for fight or flight, his breathing slow yet whining very faint. The teen’s singular visible eye traces over the umbra’s both language, his partly concealed mouth dips to one side in a sympathetic frown – jagged and toothy on the other.

“Sorry,” he whispers, guiding the kavat’s face away from his side as he motions to stand. Digitigrade feet carry him to his full height – mutated legs remarking him taller than the stature of a teen untampered by the void. Dark claws paw against the floor in idle thought, straining to find his words. “I forgot about… yeah,” he fumbles. “were we playing too loud, Nrtya?”

The umbra doesn’t respond, keeping himself anchored beside the column.

Warren doesn’t shift from his position, hesitant to making any aggressive movements. “I’ll try to keep it down, find another surface we can use,” a toothy smile grins warm. “I’ll see if Suuir can’t put audio dampeners on the personal quarters, let you have some peace and quiet.”

Nrtya doesn’t respond; but he does move, letting the skiajati lie against his thigh, his palm hooking over the smooth sheath made of his flesh.

There’s a moment of pause before the umbra moves himself away from the pair, wandering back into the personal quarters to quell his burning anxiety. An aching expressed in his slowed steps as Warren watches Nrtya walk away.

The kavat winds itself against Warren’s thigh, butting and nipping at his hand for more attention. His hand drifts down and scratches it behind the ear as hi listens to Nrtya’s shallow steps, the sound of the quarter door opening and closing. He whispers down at the kavat before looking back to where the oberon sits crouched, tapping a white stone against its snarling concentrating teeth. “Kiln,” he whispers, “stop that.”

The oberon grumbles in response, dropping the piece back into the basket beside the goban.

 

…

 

A heavy sigh heaves from the umbra as his single gaze opens to the depths again, the orbiter rising over the horizon of Saturn and rising up through the clouds of debris. Nrtya is motionless as he watches the accent through the side of the ship, accustomed to the settled transition of below to above as it’s been since the tenno’s warframe left. He hasn’t paid much mind to count the hours, the ship cephalon already had that responsibility. They’ll be back eventually, he figures, taking a deep breath and exhaling once more into the cooled atmosphere of the homelier quarters.

The flora sits perked around him and the mute ayatan sculptures, items that would’ve been a cause of great duress before due to their ambiguous nature. But, their rhythmical motions made it easier to disrupt his anxiety, entranced for a brief time until he was able to keep himself away from the burning thought. It was the teen’s idea to introduce them; of course, he had his apprehension, foreign objects introduced into his meditation routine, retrieved from some place unknown to him.

He was given something foreign along with it; a choice of ambiance as dampeners are put in place around the room – leaving him separated from the rest of the ship. The ambience, a serene song of occasional plucked chords, the quiet whisper of a drifting stream, the gentle sound of wind established around him at his own discretion. It’s a first, to have a semblance of control over his environment.

His breathing is calm, yet his joints radiate tension from sitting still for so long, adrift in his own null thoughts on nothing in particular. They scream for movement, to stretch, to lunge and eviscerate; a carnal side he despises due to its bestial desires – and its origin.

“Trouble concentrating, old friend?” the single sullen brow presses against his exposed flesh, hand drifting up along the folds of the long scarf and feeling over the lingering scar felt faint beneath his fingertips. A ghost snaking through his nerves, imagery of staring down glowing eyes that feed him anguishing truths as he lied drugged and dazed – forced to play through the nerve damage tingling through fingers and bone. A swarm presses inside his mind, his fingers pressing around his throat and grasping it as his breathing wheezes.

“Umbra,” the ship cephalon starts, and stops, correcting itself, “Nrtya.” He’s broken out of the repeating memory as he stares at the ceiling – where the cephalon’s voice resides. “Would you prefer another soundscape? Your stress levels have risen above the specified threshold.”

With a chuff, Nrtya rises to his feet and plucks the skiajati from the nook between the kneeling cushion and the thick observation glass. It’s not the noise, he just needs to move; that’s all he rationalizes. Just too stuffed up in the lingering ship to be anything but neurotic. He’s taken time to meditation, letting his mind drift to and fro; he needs to stretch his legs, pace around the ship a couple times and do something besides being static. Perhaps memorize the layout of the ship in case anything was to happen.

His steps are slow as he moves to the back of the room, where the dampeners are the weakest, where the ship’s ambient hum overtakes the customized soundscape and where the door slide open with a hiss. There’s a hesitant flinch that crawls over his shoulders as the thick blocks are cradled by their interior housing, leading him out into the open space of the lower galley. The cephalon’s core hums below the center region as he wanders, investigating the stunted growth firmly ingrained into the ship’s paneling. He doesn’t stray too far however, a sense of unease swarming before he maneuvers himself to where the operation hub rests in the upper galley. The machinery sits quiet, the slate grey panels reflecting sunset orange light as he traces over the sleek white bordering.

The style, distinctly not orokin; comfortable, not orokin.

On the far end the ramp is held up tight, the navigation systems closed off until the tenno’s warframe returns. There was a strain between the two he felt as he stepped aboard of his own volition – a hesitation from the heavily scarred loki as the umbra passed without a word. Too mentally strained, leaving the tenno’s side as he just wanted some peace; their words tense as he found a place to settle.

His dark fingers graze over the surface as he looks to the center of the galley, where the teen had set up the day prior – it was yesterday, wasn’t it? There was no indication in how much time has passed since he last left the personal quarters – that was the cephalon’s job. And he couldn’t just ask. His hand drifts away from the sleek surface and beneath his scarf, grazing at the remnant scar.

Nerves jolt as something grazes along his thigh, reaction quicker than thought as he smacks downward towards the offending touch. Warren’s kavat jumps away, tail flickering as its faint blue energy glows through squinting eyes. Nrtya goes still, his hand held firmly idle as he processes what had just happened. The cat creature was just seeking attention… he’s unsure what to do and holds out his palm that he had swatted the kavat with. He strains to make some sort of noise; a soft breath as he squats with his hand held out.

The kavat leers at him, but slowly crouches forth and smells his fingers.

It doesn’t proceed any further and instead wanders back around to the lower galley with a low meow.

Still knelt on the floor Nrtya watches the creature vanish down the ramp, and as it doubles back to peer at him.

He was never good at reading body language. Nrtya stands up again, following the kavat down the ramp and back towards where the transference chamber resides. It stands on its back legs, scratching at the sealed door, and meows. It goes unnoticed by the cephalon until Nrtya moves closer, letting him and the kavat into the arboriform lit room. The creature trots around the corner quickly, its short tail vanishing behind a screen panel.

“Rhubarb, how’d you get in here,” the tenno fumes around the corner as Nrtya slowly walks; half curious, half hesitant. He can hear a stone tap on a hard surface, a game in session he had interrupted.

You spied on me, intercepted my communications.

He didn’t mean…

Anxiety chokes out hesitation, curiosity satisfied, he turns heel.

“Nrtya,” a voice whispers behind him, the only thing that brings him to pause and look back.

The kavat wiggles as its held restrained by Warren, meowing and pawing to get free.

“Can you take her out?” The digitgrade tenno slowly approaches him – though the wiggling kavat makes it difficult. “I don’t like having her in here, she gets into trouble.” The kavat’s tufted ears brushes Warren’s short hair around, exposing a voided eye bleed white surrounded by deeply scarred skin.

Nrtya scoops the kavat up, fumbling the creature as he turns around to leave as anxiousness spikes. Its spindly legs make it hard to manage, dropping it back to the floor as soon as he’s out of the room only for the kavat to turn heel and run back in.

“Rhubarb!” And he hears a small scuffle down the short walk into the transference chamber. The umbra watches as the tenno heaves the kavat back into Nrtya’s arms. “Can you watch her for me?” he sighs, fixing his hair back to cover his void tainted eye. “There should be some toys in the personal quarters to entertain her for a while.”

Nrtya nods, holding the disgruntled kavat against his chest as the transference chamber door eases shut.

The kavat meows in his arms, pawing to be let down.

He releases the fawn-marked creature with a steady exhale, watching as it circles in place before it returns to pawing at the door once more. He watches it for a moment, then turns back to the open galley ready to stretch his anxious nerves.  
Eventually, the kavat gives up, joining in the circular pace aching for attention and after his wisping scarf.

 

…

 

Nearly a week passes before the tenno’s warframe returns. He’s decorated with angry healing wounds, sprayed with sticky blood ichor black and red, and it drips down the white and tan inhuman skin as he paws back aboard the vessel. Warren’s unfazed by his warframe’s gruesome appearance, and it leaves Nrtya to stare as the warframe collapses back on a short stool on the other end of the galley. Blood soaked weapons are callously cast into a stained bin, a later preoccupation for the pair to tend to as the umbra only watches from across the way.

From where he leans against a wall panel leading to the lower galley, he can hear the warframe wheeze through his chest vents. Shaking exhales held firm as a wet rag washes away the blood onto a soaked basin. The loki sits hunched over, elbows lied over knees as his operator cleans away the dark stains and pulls at metal shrapnel clustering in the warframe’s back. Barely a sound rises from the loki as they’re removed piece by piece, the only acknowledgement being the resound of metal as they’re cast aside into an awaiting pail. The wounds reseal as blood begins to welt, padded away as the pair speak barely above a whisper; the loki’s voice strained.

The loki – T'viska, the umbra catches – runs his fingers through the tenno’s hair, ruffling it into a haphazard mess with a tired smile. Warren huffs, dropping the dripping rag to brush his hair back into place. A milky white eye catches sight of Nrtya as he looks away, as does T'viska whose breathing holds firm as he stares the other frame down. Neither of the frames move, a sightless gaze peering into a singular white eye.

Last they met, Nrtya threw T'viska into a wall and nearly choked Warren.

T'viska flinches when Warren presses his thumb into a healing wound, ichor black dripping over his finger. “Dad, it’s okay,” he sighs, “just give him some time to adjust.” The loki relents with a sigh, his shoulders drooping down with his crown, shadowing himself as Warren tends to the damage he sustained in his escape. Metal burns, blood drawn by tracer rounds, a marking of explosive damage laid bare to the bright light of the galley.

Nrtya excuses himself.

As he passes into the personal quarters his singular eye squeezes shut, a hand grasping against the front of his helm as restrained memories swarm. ‘Isaah…’ his soul aches, carrying himself back to the panoramic glass. The skiajati clatters to the side as he drops down onto the cushion in a hurry, knees crumbled against it. Rending disrupts his thoughts, the burning agony biting into his restraint with vicious malformed teeth wrought with infestation. Tearing of metal perturbs his nerves, throwing him back into reliving the trauma. ‘Isaah…’ his vents breath with a deep aching sigh – both hands cradle his face as he kneels forward as his movements lie barely restrained. The memory just won’t stop.

His throat aches as he tries to sob, tries to cry, tries to mourn! But with him trapped inside the melding of flesh, in a body once completely his viciously taken from him. And palms press against his made strange skin, the faded gilding, the exposed flesh crafted within his helm and leaving him with a singular sight that can see into the void itself. Fingers claw against his skin, digging against the flesh as he tries to find something to hold onto, something to become transfixed as he can feel himself breaking down bit by bit.

The realization upon waking up and restrained to a hospital bed, the executor poised with a board laid between them, his son standing by his side unassuming to the horrors before him. If only he knew, if only he knew; but they were dax, there was only the servitude to the orokin. There was nothing he could’ve done to prevent it. But still, it doesn’t cease the burning in his nerves as he crumples down, fists held against the glass staring out into the depths of space as the ship hums through a collective of corpus ships.

The time between, far too long.

But the hurt is deep, scratching as it replays in repeat, a focal lens he’s unable to control.

Don’t worry, old friend. I’m not going to kill your boy…

A jaunt hand raised, an invitation to the horror pilfering his restraint. Made broken, a fist strikes the glass to the cephalon’s muted displeasure. An ill scratching through what could constitute his throat, breath in heavy exhales as he recoils into the surface astrewn. He’s inattentive as he stares into the memory, the infestation burrowed into his body and mind, twisting him into whom he was forced to become and only then breaking the restraints that held him.

You are.

Tearing the restraints as his body metamorphized, a snarling mass of constituted claws and teeth shattering dax armor, rending blood upon the hospital floor as the bastard only watched. Watched how good of a servant the serum turned him into as he claws through Isaah’s dax armor, bit into arms raised in defense and yanked them from their sockets. An uncaring body displaced from a broken mind that can only watch nervously numb. Fist run gory as he strikes again and again, shattering armor with formed metal knuckles and singing gilded claws saturated with maroon. Vision draws away from indulging on warm flesh swallowed in vicious snaps, looking down as life bleeds out of the younger dax’s eyes.

Only then, after his uncontrolled body made his son into ruin, did he have control.

He mourned for what felt like a lifetime until the Orokin commanded him to stand, his front saturated with his son’s blood, he was forced to walk out in his new body. One he caught in a reflection as he left his son’s corpse behind, only giving it one last courtesy glance. He didn’t have to see the Orokin to feel his smile – that he took his will away, his personhood.

If he was able to, he would’ve wrung the Orokin’s neck.

Again the memory relapses, fighting against it as his hands grip against the juts in his forearms, pulling against them as he collapses against the glass. Unable to even cry as his energy flares up.

Across the quarters the door unseals, hissing open.

His energy flares into an exalted blade, the burning energy brimming with anguished ferocity as he scrambles to his feet even as his body trembles. Nerves still run erratic as he holds the blade towards the intruder, the battle-marred loki T'viska, ready for any trickery even as his limbs are still trembling, still reliving the trauma in the backdrop of controlled motions. They stare each other down, vision meeting a lacking sight made of tan and cream. It’s featureless shape unnerves him, unable to read the loki’s emotion as he starts to walk down the curved stairs and around the display that used to separate them.

T'viska plucks a cushion from the rounded couch, still keeping Nrtya in his sights as he moves. The loki’s golden claws are nimble as it grips the white cushion, holding it outstretched behind him as he so casually approaches Nrtya, the exalted blade held against his chest with a mild burn.

And the two stare.

And stare until it’s all Nrtya can think about – the ‘what is he going to do?’ pervades his thoughts.

Just enough to make the umbra hesitate, but not enough for him to withdraw the exalted blade until the loki shifts to kneel – tapping it against the warframe’s bare chest. T'viska stares back, and then, just as casually, puts the cushion down beside Nrtya’s. He kneels as the umbra holds the exalted blade against his nape, letting out a sigh and a worn exhale.

Then a quick inhale. “Join me,” the loki softly snaps, looking up to Nrtya.

Only then does Nrtya displaces his exalted blade; when he’s sure the warframe isn’t interested in hurting him. He adjusts the cushion he collected prior, easing it off to the side to give the loki unassuming space before kneeling upon it.

And again, between them is only silence, leaving the soundscape to prevail.

T'viska’s decorative piercings jingle as he adjusts, pierced through his horns and in the back of his head, tapping against the metal covering his spine as he stretches out his neck. Across the loki’s body rifts of black wounds return mostly healed – excluding the deep scars decorating his chest, ones that makes Nrtya curious. Why didn’t those heal like the rest?

T'viska breathes beside him, looking over to catch Nrtya’s curiosity. He says nothing, but runs his golden claws over the scratches and fogging marks in the glass in front of them – what Nrtya left behind in his erratic episode. It makes Nrtya flinch.

The loki drags his fingers across them, pulling back to rub index middle and thumb. “Panic attack?” he questions, looking over to Nrtya.

It takes him a moment to respond; a slow nod, resenting the embarrassment of such an act.

“It’s okay,” T'viska sighs as Nrtya looks away. The loki’s formed maw frowns as he watches the umbra and looks towards the ceiling. “Suuir, hologram please.”

The cephalon the external glass coating as light ignites in front of it, a display made of series of pinpointing lights narrowed down into their location. T'viska taps away at a dialogue screen, formatting it, navigating it as he searches for a certain function. Not something among the cephalon weave, or to prod through the signals of the ships the orbiter speeds past, but instead to a simple writing surface.

“Warren, filled me in,” the loki starts, moving back into a kneel. “On what… happened to you.” There’s a pause, a tension as within Nrtya memories threaten to swarm. “Just use this,” T'viska motions in front of them, “to communicate for now… I have another job lined up once we arrive at the destination, and I’ll have to leave again.”

He can feel Nrtya’s hesitation, looking over at him for a moment. Claws trace against the light laid upon the glass, images responding with the gestures, drawing out tenno words. “You had a son, right…?” he questions, to which the umbra nods a confirmation. T'viska sighs, sitting back onto the cushion. “I’m not like you… Nryta. But Warren is my son; I only have a semblance of what you feel.”

Nrtya looks over T'viska, his single solitary white eye narrowed. Then he looks over to the displayed screen on glass, slowly raising his hand to draw out a word in Orokin, the letters slightly distinct from the tenno’s concise language.

‘how?’ is written over the glass in a smooth hand gesture.

At his side T'viska sighs, looking out past the tinted glass to the silent space beyond. There’s a motion to speak – but he thinks other of it, his hand rising to the illuminated screen in front of the glass. Motions trace out words as he begins to speak, “Warren…” he starts, “saved me.” His fingers form a mimicry of what had transpired, a forced connection, the empathetic link, of shared pain.

As the loki’s finger withdraws, a dark digit traces out among the scratchboard, spelling simply among the complex. ‘why?’

T’viska’s golden claw returns to the malleable surface, etching out as he explains the circumstances to the umbra. He allows Nrtya to interrupt him, explain their differences – one transformed, the other a flesh-craft golem given sentience; of one’s loss, the others gain. Their conversation bleeds between verbal and written, the once firm tension dissolving as the ship hums towards its next destination. T’viska will have to run another dangerous espionage mission to keep them afloat, leave Warren again despite how much it pains him – something he is eager to express to Nrtya.

He notions this through voice and gilded claw, looking over with seamed eyes echoing steaming blue.

 

Please, take care of him for me.

 

A breath eases from Nrtya’s lungs as he watches Warren and the oberon across the transference chamber, observing the kavat making a nuisance of itself by worming between the two and the goban settled between them. Leaned against the wall, far from the board bound with the burning memory, he’s able to disassociate from it easier, muting out the sound of stone on the fabric covered wood surface.

Don’t concentrate on the object itself, Nrtya. Leave any noise as an afterthought if you want to get comfortable with it again. The loki tried to encourage, feeding him to just watch the two play and not listen to the sound that could trigger his relapse. Taps still resound in his head, tearing himself away before he can get too focused on the noise.

He watches as the kavat viciously rubs against Warren’s face, pushing him as he tries to lay down a stone. “Rhubarb,” the teen curses, wrapping his clawed limb around the creature’s neck, spined elbow easing the creature gently before it flops and drags along the floor. With a stone placed, Warren releases the kavat’s neck, adjusting to not let the creature between him and the block again. But the kavat is persistent, rubbing into the tenno’s loose clothing, pawing at the flaps of cloth that hangs over the teen’s thighs.

Warren grunts, his somatic implants glowing as he tries to ease the kavat away again. “Go bug Nrtya or something, Rhubarb, shoo!” The kavat doesn’t move, too encouraged by the attention.  
He grumbles before cupping the kavat between the shoulders and behind its rump, scooting it across the floor and out of the way. Rhubarb looks back over the floor space to where Warren settles back on the cushion, her tail flickering from being unceremoniously moved, expression disgruntled as she is relegated to just lying on the floor and watching.

“Oh, don’t give me that look,” Warren exasperates, rolling his visible sight as he turns back to the goban.

At the acknowledgement of her presence, the kavat moves back to lying on her legs, shifting to get up before there’s a single snap that makes her pause. Tufted ears twitch towards the source of the sudden noise, glancing back towards the other end of the room where Nrtya has a hand held out.

He watches the creature carefully as he eases down into a crouch, his scarf dangling down around him, dragging across the ground as he anticipates the kavat’s response. It lies still across the room, watching him, waiting; and he snaps his fingers again with a breathing chuff – hoping the creature is able to understand his intention. The kavat lies back down on the floor, rubbing as it looks over towards Nrtya.

“She wants you to come get her,” Warren sighs, placing a piece to claim a forgotten stone. “Ignore her enough, and she’ll come to you.”

Nrtya’s hand drops against his thigh, brushing along the fabrics attached to his person as he watches the kavat between the support beams. It leaves him separated from the other ship’s occupants, but he’s not alone as before and shutting himself out and isolated; and perfectly fine with watching the ongoing game from afar now than before. ‘Give it some time, Nrtya,’ he can remember the loki say as he etched along the holographic display before them, ‘take care of yourself, ease yourself into your comfort zone.’

Dark fingers edge along his fractured feature, staring down at his hand as it pulls away.

Maybe someday. He’s gotten better with suppressing the anxiety the simple game brought, partly due to T'viska’s adamancy about him recovering from the trauma and removing it from the situation. He’s fine with the its occupation in his region, but the noise.

The tapping; the taunting of stoned placed in confidence.

A struggling to remain focused as pain surges through his body made of the orokin’s dangling serums, only able to look over the board as his concentration is the one to set the stones into place. Unable to control himself, forced to play the orokin’s little game as a mind forces him to listen…

Nrtya holds his face, shaking it to replace his throughs elsewhere.

He quietly excuses himself, swiftly walking out of the chamber with so much of an acknowledgement of the kavat tailing his scarf, nor the call of the tenno sat around the corner.

 

…

 

Nrtya is at ease back in the personal quarters, staring out into the darkness beyond the tinted observation glass, eyeing the swarming corpus vessels as they drift out of sight as the orbiter drifts through its passive orbit around pluto. There, amongst the gentle hum of the ayatan sculptures, surrounded with bobbing foliage, his breathing lies calmed; traces of bleached blue crease around the sides of his chest as his vision drifts comfortably closed. A soundscape echoes through the chamber an ocean breeze, soothing his anxious mind away from trauma, coaxing it to drift comfortably safe.

Against his side, the kavat years for attention. Fangs drag against his skin as she rubs her jowls against his shoulder, headbutting as he sits poised in the center of the raised platform. She’s persistent, trying to nudge herself beneath Nrtya’s arm, pawing at the loose fabric hanging around his shoulders and down his back. Gently she pats at it, claws pulling against the cloth and yanking till they’re free once more.

Eventually, Rhubarb gives up, curling in her bed, dozing off to the serene tunes.

After some time, Nrtya removes himself from the room, wandering back into the transference chamber and lying back against the wall, placing himself faintly closer to where Warren and Kiln are kneeling with half-adverted attention. ‘Take it easy,” the loki’s words spring to mind as he stares into the distance, hinted with the imagery of a golden claw etching as the other spoke, ‘don’t push yourself too hard. It always takes some time.’ His hand kneads against his helm, rubbing at the feeling of his temple. He doesn’t need to stay in its presence, he can excuse himself when he’s uncomfortable, which he inevitably does.

Wandering out of the transference chamber, settling back into the personal quarters to bleed the anxiety plaguing his systems. Mind drawn to a blank as he stares out into the depths, to the pinpoint glint of the sun as the ship’s orbit erodes and passes a corpus station.

He wants to get better; a hand balling against his face, pressing into the gilding crest of his face, a voided eye drifting close as he lets the sounds eb and flow. He just wants to get better; a simple game he once enjoyed made him weak. ‘It’s not your fault,” he remembers, Warren’s voice, his face torn into anguish as the umbra remembered. “Ballas did this, not you,”

Fingers claw against his thighs as the memory fades, hands balling into fists as he presses himself up to return to the transference chamber. Once there, he remains quietly leaned up against the wall faintly closer to the silent pair, still separated by the decorative struts lining the central path. And again, the anxiety begins to compound as the gentle tapping of stone on the cloth covering digs through his senses, a nuance that forces him to stand upright and return to the personal quarters.

On his way back, he catches the tenno’s gaze following him out; Warren says nothing…

But his expression tells Nrtya enough.

And he persists for untold hours, edging himself closer, leaning against the inner side of the struts as he keeps his distance. Even when he finds himself alone, the goban and kneeling cushions unoccupied, a game set and ended with any space left aside from a draw – he leans up against the strut, releasing a deep exhale as he waits… hoping they’d return. To start up another game of soft taps and let him stare at the ceiling once more.

His gaze traces over the pieces left behind, a mosaic of white and black laid upon a cream cloth lined with a grid in black. Nrtya can barely see it from this distance, hidden beneath the pieces and tempting him to come ever closer. Just a mimicry of charcoal, he figures, fingers pressing against his crossed biceps, fiddling with the scarf as he forces himself to look away in exasperation.

It’s only a couple steps, his mind so adamantly declares.

He’s gotten this close.

A memory surges through his thoughts before vehemently shutting it out, a singular brow squeezing against his congested features, his horizontal pupil staring towards stilled game. It’s only a couple steps away, so close, but still a distance. Silence is his only company, a relieve and an anxiety – no one can see his reaction…

His confidence strains, lifting himself off the column with a deep exhale.

The umbra crosses the central path leading up to Warren’s somatic link, a hand extending and grasping a decorative strut connecting the left region. Carefully, he eases himself towards it, holding it not for physical support but as a stabilizer – pulse hammering in his throat. Now only a simple screen panel separates him from the little gam – a voice chuckles in his thoughts.

Moving forth, Nrtya’s fingers find themselves adrift without contact, drawn close against his body and becoming enthralled with the fabric draping down his front. Nervous, he can tell as they fiddle through the material, a palm roving ever so closer to where his breathing chokes in his throat. He’s trembling, and he forces himself to breathe as he moves to the sidelines. Deep in, deep out; he stares over the goban and the mischievous mistakes laid out in stone, where countless errors and careless placements coaxed the game into a draw.

‘Take it easy,’ the loki’s words spring through the hammering panic ‘don’t force it.’

The words repeat even as a glowing sight forms inside his mind, staring him down from across a digital komi display. Anxiety stammers through his throat.

It’s just a game; his mind cries.

Sound rumbles through his chest as his voided eye squeezes shut, hands balling into fists as trauma surges through his thoughts. The fear caught in his throat rings too similar – a voice box removed, his individuality stripped – and yet he’s still there.

He’s still there.

Blood oozes down his fingers, forgotten as he crosses himself down into a kneel, breath rumbling through the flaring dark vents along his side as they bellow gas. A knee bends against a bead of blood, followed by the other as his palms aggressively press against his legs. Torn through there and now, forcing air out of his lungs as he tries to get himself to settle on the floor. His vision averted – he’s gotten this close.

Nrtya teeters at the edge of his comfort zone, rubbing a hand clean of the foreign stickiness, he reaches out and traces a digit over a smooth stone settled at the edge. His vision remains averted as his breathing is forced to slow, finger tips grazing from stone to another as his relief sighs erratic. His forefinger is slow to drag, moving over onto a third with a brief hesitation.

And then, the hesitation is stripped. Not from relief, as the anxiety tumbles.

To when he was held in restraints.

An object jabs and prods as it digs through a hole in his head, arms held down as a device mutilates and coils. Blood, so much blood oozing down his arms, a billowing scream hampered by dampeners inserted into his back. He wants out; he can’t run, his legs are gone – and his claws dig into stone as a voice disregards his anguish. Ballas, his gut twists, howling as he’s able to strike. Smooth stones rattle to the floor, an object overturned – bringing him back to the ache in a body not his own – a body moved through another’s mind as he’s only able to claw internal; mind numbed, sedated, tormented as a single voice coaxes him to brutalize.

Just a husk… an empty shell.

Blood oozes as he cuts through flesh, cutting into sword-steel skin and digging against phantom restraints with an anguished hushed gasp. Body trembling, the goban knocked to its side, blood dripping from his wrists and throat… 

“Nrtya!” The tenno, “are you alright?”

The umbra’s scarf flourishes as he storms past the tenno. Nrtya doesn’t want to think; throwing off the teen’s hand with an aggressive growl.

 

…

 

His breathing stammers as he stares out into the darkness, coiled upon the cushion with his head between his hands, blood oozing down his chin as his voided eye squeezes shut. Despite the calming environmental tones, all he can hear is static overstimulation – a tone between comfort and dread, the agony of long ago prying at his thoughts as his breath shutters through his vents. At his side, the kavat stares but remains distant, kept away by his growling breaths.

Anxiety chokes within his throat, kept in place as his mind rockets between horrors sat between remembered and blurred. Tormented, eviscerated, toyed with relentlessly; mind brutalized again and again –

Nrtya doesn’t want to think.

As his breathing wheezes, he’s unable to pull himself out of his coiling state, too exhausted by his anxious mind to move, emotions running numb as the flaring vents at his side flex contradictory to his aching inhales. Choking, he can feel in his sore lungs, hands wrapping and pulling at the gilding fused into his skin. His hands eventually faulter, crossing over his knees as the head is cradled by his forearms, run ragged into disassociation.

Rhubarb inches herself closer, until she’s rubbing beneath his arm. Her wide head snakes beneath him to sniff his gored face, lapping at the traces of blood clinging to his visage. Still too exhausted to protest, he allows the kavat to lick his skin, her whiskers tickling at his slumped features as she presses further and rounds to his other side. She nudges his arm, pawing against his leg with a chuff as she tries to scoot herself into his lap. Between his exhaustion and her persistence, she wins, forcing him to sit up with an exhausted sigh.

Before she can crawl into his lap, he pulls her close; his face buries into her fur, his features rubbing until she worms out of his grasp and turns into his lap. Still ringing emotionally numb, he stares back into the depth of space; his hand remains occupied with the kavat’s fur.

She purrs as he strokes her fur, the noise strumming against his lingering tension in his nerves to dilute, letting the tension in his senses loosen and listen to the whisper soundscape around him. Emotions still ringing null, exhausted.

“Nrtya…?” the umbra doesn’t move, even as a hand comes to rest on his shoulder. His sight remains to stare out into the distance even as Warren drops a cushion beside him, collapsing down with a sigh.

Strained, anticipating silence.

Two hands reach out, taking a dark palm gently outwards from its petting strokes. “Nrtya,” Warren whispers, “you’re bleeding.” From the side Warren pulls a rag from a dry basin, the fabric smooth against the umbra’s skin. It’s healing, but there’s still the traces of blood between his digits and along the sharpened claws. Hand over hand, Warren grasps the injured palm – a hold that gently returns. After a moment, he finally speaks, “there was blood on the goban cover.”

Nrtya flinches.

Warren kneels, wrestling the umbra’s other hand over to clean it of lingering blood. He wipes it from the kavat’s fur as he goes along, paying more attention to Nrtya’s lingering injuries over his pet’s personal appearance. The umbra doesn’t move as the tenno works. “You pushed yourself, didn’t you,” Warren muses, returning to sitting on his cushion. Nrtya doesn’t respond, cleaned hands burying into the kavat’s coat. “To approach the goban.”

The tenno signals to his cephalon, indicating to turn on the temporal screen in front of the observation glass. As before it darkens the glass to dilute the incoming light, and around them the lights proceed to dim until the orange glow of the display screen is the brightest thing. The writing display reignites in front of them, the size doubled with the teen’s hand gestures before he sits back with a sigh. “Don’t worry about it, the mess is already cleaned up, you aren’t in trouble,” a laugh left dry. Nrtya’s silence tints his mood, drawing Warren to sigh.

“Listen, Nrtya,” he tries again, “you heard what my dad said. Don’t force it if you feel uncomfortable – that’s the last thing I want you to feel.” With a huff, the tenno’s mismatched arms cross, getting himself settled. “If you still have any inclination,” he pauses, looking for a momentary reaction by the umbra. He finds none, “we play for the fun of it – no risk, no gambles…” his voice chokes, breathing a sigh. “Sorry, I should probably just leave you be, I apologize.”

As he goes to stand, a hand grips his wrist. Nrtya’s dark limb holds him there, the only change in the umbra’s body language.

The tenno relents, getting settled on the cushion once again. “I can stay, if that’s what you need.”

Nrtya releases Warren’s wrist, and slowly, he nods.

 

…

 

Warren finds himself playing alone in the transference chamber, moving the smooth stones in a meticulous fashion to bide his time as Nrtya watches from a far. His nerves still ring anxious, but the tenno’s presence eases the worry about his own self-control. Separated from the screen panel once torn in a panic, he listens to the gentle taps, the tenno humming a song that doesn’t strike him as foreign, but still unfamiliar.

Under the tenno’s directive, Nrtya’s stopped forcing himself closer to the game; he’s already gotten himself worn down from the prospect of forcing himself closer only to have to remove himself again to calm down. It was Warren’s suggestion to linger as the tenno played, remove himself when the noise got to be too much for him. And from his position, Warren is able to watch him, stopping his game whenever it looked like the umbra was pursuing enough duress.

Someone must escort him out for his own good.

And when the umbra’s nerves settle, they return to the small area in the transference chamber. Warren on one side of the divider, Nrtya on the other. It’s a rhythm they fall into, silently as the duration increases, the proximity narrows.

That is, up until Nrtya is able to hold himself composed as he kneels onto a cushion, the breath through his vents a deep exhale as he stares at the empty grid in front of him. Across sits Warren, drawing their colors at their side. Two baskets hold the colored stones, and Warren holds up a black piece between them, deep in thought.

And carefully, he places it down, giving Nrtya the right to play as white.

The game is slow and methodical as around them a soundscape plays, it’s a gentle forest from the cephalon’s archival records, a distinctively different mood from the personal quarter’s mimicry ocean breeze. And Warren speaks of nothing in particular – something to add to the auditory combination to suppress Nrtya’s bleeding anxiety, letting him play longer games as time goes on.

But, nonetheless, he still needs his occasional break to breathe, to step away and settle the anxious thoughts before they resume.

Gradually, as the time passes from hours into days, Nrtya can feel a semblance of comfort again as he plays, plotting out between their movements as the operator droops across from him. The tenno’s voided eye stares unobscured through Warren’s hair as time elapses, yawning as he leans against the wall exhausted, yet still playing.

If he could, Nrtya would smile, placing a white stone beside black on an unfiltered grid. Capturing a sum.

Warren grunts from against the wall, beaten again.

**Author's Note:**

> -+- Kudos, comments and sharing are encouraged! -+-


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